Gardner tours Erie firearms accessories manufacturer

U.S. representative says Gov. Hickenlooper should do the same

By John Fryar

Longmont Times-Call

Posted:
02/21/2013 11:37:35 AM MST

Updated:
02/22/2013 07:45:44 PM MST

ERIE -- Gov. John Hickenlooper should visit Magpul Industries Corp. and see for himself the impact that passage of gun-control measures would have on the families of about 200 people working for a manufacturer here, U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner said Thursday.

An amendment to a recently passed House bill would allow high-capacity magazine manufacturers to make them in Colorado and sell them elsewhere.

But Magpul officials told Gardner, Marble and state Rep. Lori Saine -- a Dacono Republican who joined the others after the plant tour -- that the amendment wouldn't be enough to prompt the company to stay if the bill becomes law.

"We want to continue to be a Colorado company," said Duane Liptak Jr., Magpul's director of product management and marketing.

Magpul's chief operating officer, Doug Smith, said, however, that "our company was founded based on a set of values that resonate with our customer base." If Magpul continued to manufacture its ammunition magazines in a state whose own residents couldn't own them, "our customer base would feel betrayed."

Introduction of the magazine-capacity bill also prompted the company to put on hold its expansion plans, which include a new 200,000-square-foot facility that was to be built on a site near Interstate Highway 25 on Baseline Road, Magpul officials said.

A Magpul pullout could jeopardize the livelihoods of many of the 200 Coloradans who work directly for the company, as well as about 400 people who work for Magpul's Colorado-based suppliers, Gardner said after the tour.

From left: U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, and state Sen. Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, listen as chief operating officer Doug Smith talks about his company Thursday morning during a tour of Magpul Industries Corp. in Erie. Magpul, a gun parts manufacturer, has said it would leave Colorado if the state passes a law limiting the capacity of ammunition magazines.
(Lewis Geyer, Longmont Times-Call)

The congressman also raised a question about whether the proposed Colorado law might violate the Interstate Commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution and related federal laws -- something Magpul officials indicated their lawyers are looking into.

"The bottom line," Gardner said, is that the magazine-capacity-limits bill and other gun-control measures that have received House approval won't prevent gun violence. He said they'd wind up "making criminals out of innocent people."

The Legislature and Congress should instead work in areas where "there is common ground," Gardner said, such as efforts to provide people with mental illnesses the treatment they need and intervening, when necessary, to try to keep firearms out of the hands of people whose mental health conditions could lead to violence.

Marble told Magpul officials that she'd try to arrange a similar company tour for fellow state Senate Republicans.